


Icy Roads

by JustAnotherWriter (N1ghtshade)



Category: Monster Trucks (2017)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-10-16 07:34:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17545403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/N1ghtshade/pseuds/JustAnotherWriter
Summary: As it turned out, leaving Creech at home was a very bad idea...Winter weather can be more dangerous than expected, and after an accident, it's up to Meredith and Creech to try to find and rescue Tripp...





	Icy Roads

**Author's Note:**

> I blame this fic on the nasty winter weather I've been contending with where I live. The roads are a mess, and the temperature is no fun to be out in...

Creech gurgles happily when the barn door opens. Door opening means he gets to see Tripp...and gets to go outside. He rumbles the truck up to the door and bumps it gently against Tripp when he pushes the door wide open. He used to get more excited but Tripp told him it had to stop when Creech knocked him down so hard it hurt him. Creech doesn’t want to hurt his friend but he wants Tripp to know he’s happy to see him. Sometimes he forgets humans are fragile and their bodies have so many breakable bones in them. If Creech falls, his body just absorbs it. Humans break sometimes. And then they have to wear funny hard things on the broken arm for weeks, and they’re not as much fun because they have to be careful.

“Hey, cold snap made you hungry, huh?” Tripp asks when he sees the two empty oil barrels, laughing and pushing a couple of tentacles away. Creech doesn’t like the scarf and hat his friend is wearing, they leave fuzz all over his tentacles. He pulls back, and then yanks the hat off.

“Give that back!” Tripp grabs for it, but Creech tosses it to another tentacle, on the other side of the truck. Tripp shakes his head, but follows. This is fun, like when Tripp taught him to “juggle”. Except that he’s throwing a hat instead of baseballs. “Listen, buddy, I’ll play with you later. But I’m gonna be late for school if I don’t go now. I just wanted to check on you and make sure the cold didn’t hurt you.” He glances around the barn. “Rick and I tried to make this place as cozy as we could for you, but I worry about you.” He runs a hand over one of the tentacles, then checks the heater in the corner. “Doesn’t look like you’re getting frostbite or anything. You should be fine. We’ll see how you do when the weather gets even colder.” 

He starts walking away, back to the door. That’s not right. School means driving and driving means Creech gets to go out with the truck. It’s really fun now that there’s snow and ice, Creech likes spinning the truck in circles on ice or running through the snow really fast and making it fly everywhere.  Creech rumbles toward the door again, it’s not open wide enough to get the truck out and he starts pushing it with a couple tentacles. 

“No, not today, buddy.” Tripp rubs Creech’s head, pushing him backward. “It’s really, really cold. You’re okay in the barn but I don’t want to leave you in the parking lot at school, okay?” Creech burbles. He doesn’t mind the cold, it’s very cold down in the dark caves where he lived, but Tripp doesn’t seem to understand. Humans need to stay really warm, that’s another thing Creech has learned about them. They don’t like being cold, they start to shake and have to go somewhere warm. He pushes at the door again, but Tripp pushes back, even more forcefully. “Buddy, it’s just for the day. I’m gonna be home again this evening. You wouldn’t be able to see me all day anyway, you know that.”

Creech sighs, drooping, and rolls the truck back to its normal spot. The door closes, and he whines softly in the warm darkness.

* * *

Tripp will admit to feeling slightly guilty when he gets in Rick’s everyday car. Rick’s pulling a double shift today with the snow and ice causing a ton of accidents, and he told Tripp this morning to feel free to use his pickup to get to class, when Tripp said he was worried about Creech.

It’s not borrowing the truck he feels bad about, it’s the way Creech looked when he shut the door.  _ I wanted to let him out, he’s so excited about the snow.  _ But the weather’s turned into a typical North Dakota winter, complete with below zero temperatures and cutting wind. Just the walk from the house to the barn and back has left Tripp shivering slightly. He turns the heat in the pickup onto full as he pulls out. 

He doesn’t want to go in to school today, but he can’t afford to skip. They have a test in biology, and if he doesn’t want to be taking summer classes, he has to pass. Meredith tutoring him has really helped bring his grade back up, but the teacher’s insisting that anyone who doesn’t take the tests when they’re scheduled won’t receive full credit. The man’s a hire from California, he doesn’t understand that winters here can be life-threatening. Tripp was hoping the school would close down anyway, and then Mr. Brighton couldn’t possibly ask his students to come in. But no such luck.

According to Rick, the roads are mostly clear, there’s just a few really bad spots where meltwater ran over the roads, and some drifting off the fields on the back roads. But Tripp’s pretty confident he’ll be fine. He’s been driving cars at the salvage lot for years (long before he was legal) and he knows vehicles and how to handle them. But he’d bet the Pick-a-Part Salvage is going to have a  _ lot _ of wrecked cars coming in in the next week. He might even be able to pick up a couple extra shifts if the school does close down, which it probably will soon.  _ If I get there only to find out they called it off, I’m just gonna drive over to Mr. Weathers’s and ask if he wants help. _

He’s still got to pick up Meredith. Her dad’s not comfortable with her driving herself in on these roads, her car isn’t heavy enough to be very safe. But she’s probably safer riding in in the pickup than on the bus. 

He’s not going to take the shortcut, that road isn’t great at the best of times, and he’s pretty sure it’s going to be half drifted in. He’d chance it with Creech, but not with a regular truck. So he pulls onto the main road. It’s going to add ten minutes, but it’s worth it to not get stuck and have to explain to Mr. Weathers why  _ he _ needs a tow truck. 

Even the main road is bad, a section closed off because of heavy drifts. He’s going to have to take a detour. They’re definitely going to miss first period classes. 

He’s almost to the turn-off to get to Meredith’s place when the truck begins to slide. He slows down and starts steering out of the skid, he’s done this so many times he could do it in his sleep. And then one tire catches on a single clear patch of road and the truck starts to spin. The road is a solid sheet of black ice, invisible under the thin layer of snow. 

_ It’s just a slide. I’ll have to call the tow truck, but it’s fine. _ It’s just going to be embarrassing. Then the truck spins even farther, and now instead of sliding into the field on one side, its sliding toward the creek and ravine on the other.  _ Ok, not good. _ He’s lost control over the direction they’re going, he can’t steer one way or the other. The truck continues to pivot, and then there’s a terrifyingly slow-moving moment where it teeters on the edge of the ravine...and then rolls. Tripp has a moment to think that somehow he always manages to have something like this happen, and then the world goes dark. 

* * *

Meredith paces in front of the house, blowing on her fingers through her gloves.  _ Tripp should be here by now.  _ He called telling her he was going to check on Creech and then come pick her up. She knows her dad said the roads were a little sketchy, but Tripp’s a good driver (although she can’t quite forget that time Creech took them on that unplanned off-road adventure) and he should be fine.  _ He’s probably just going slow. _

She goes back inside, it’s too cold to wait around on the porch. Ace wanders up, tail wagging, and she pats his head absentmindedly. He whines and puts his head in her lap. “Yeah, I’m okay, I’m just a little worried. I worry too much, you know that.”

She watches the clock. Ten more minutes tick by. That’s too long. She pulls out her phone and calls Tripp’s number. There’s no answer, it just rings through to voicemail. 

_ I still have his number in my phone tracker. _ She never bothered to take it out after they followed Creech. She’s getting nothing. The phone is dead, or broken. Somehow not sending signal anymore. Something is very, very wrong. 

She dials Sheriff Rick’s number, and paces frantically until he answers. “Rick? I think Tripp’s in trouble. I think something happened to him while he was driving. And I tried to track his phone and it’s dead.”

“How did you...not important. He was on his way to pick you up, right?”

“Yes.” She feels suddenly guilty. 

“I’m going to start over that way, but there was a massive pileup outside town to the south. And the roads are getting worse. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Rick’s voice is suspiciously shaky.

Meredith can’t shake the feeling that something really awful has happened. And that Tripp might be running out of time. Rick’s right, the weather’s getting worse. The wind is stronger and drifts are getting deeper. 

She wonders if Tripp took the back road.  _ It might have drifted, but the paved roads have been getting glare ice recently. _ Maybe his car got stuck. He said he wasn’t going to take Creech out in this weather...

She knows it’s risky to go out herself. But she won’t forgive herself if something happens. She grabs a pair of her dad’s hunting coveralls, the insulated ones, and pulls them on over her school clothes. A thick hat and gloves and a heavy scarf added on top, and she thinks she won’t freeze before she makes it down the road. She doesn’t bother to tack up her horse, she just throws a blanket over his back and a hackamore bridle on his face. Meredith leads Blaze out of the barn and climbs the fence to jump on. “Come on. Let’s go.”

* * *

Creech can’t rest. He has too much pent-up energy, and he hasn’t been able to let it out. He tries juggling wrenches for a while, then climbs out of the car and crawls around the barn beams, but nothing helps. It’s not even energy, it’s a feeling of separation. Like when he lost the hive mind connection with his family. Except that now he feels like he can’t find Tripp.

Humans don’t have the same communication with their minds, either, but Creech can still feel the ones he knows. And sometimes he feels like he’s close to being able to know what Tripp’s thinking, especially if it’s simple things, like happiness or pain or affection. 

There was a sudden surge of fear, not too long ago, and now there’s absolutely nothing. Maybe Tripp is just too far away. But Creech is scared, and he even flung the empty oil barrels at the wall, which he isn’t supposed to do. But he doesn’t care if Tripp scolds, he just wants his friend to come home.

The door bangs open, and Creech glumps toward it, confused. He doesn’t feel Tripp, but is this him? And then he does feel the mind hidden in the layers of snowy cloth. Meredith. 

“Creech?” She says softly. “Hey, boy, hey.” He feels sadness and fear in her. He burbles and pokes at her face with a tentacle. “Creech, where is everyone?” He just burbles again. Rick took Tripp’s mom to her job this morning, and Tripp left him here. Everyone’s gone. He’s alone. 

“Creech, can you help me find Tripp? He’s gone, and I don’t know where he is.” She rubs his tentacle, and there’s the water running down her face that he knows means she’s sad. “I don’t know if you can track him, like a dog can, but you’re the only chance I know of finding him.”

Creech gurgles. He might not be able to follow Tripp’s thoughts, but he can follow the truck. He hates that truck, he’s supposed to be going with Tripp to school. He knows exactly what that truck smells like, and when he sees it he’s going to smash it with something like he and Tripp did to the Terravex truck at the junkyard. 

He lunges at the door, but Meredith stops him. “Wait, I need to get some things first.” She runs to the house and opens the door with the key Tripp gave her, and when she comes back her arms are full of blankets. She shoves them in the truck and ties her horse in the barn and climbs in the truck. “Let’s go, Creech.”

* * *

It’s really, really cold.

That’s the first thing Tripp notices. The second is how much he  _ hurts _ . 

He blinks, and the world looks blurry and fuzzy and oddly reddish. He’s not sure what’s wrong. But he’s laying on his side, and something’s prickling his face. He blinks again, and then he can see the inside of the truck, and the glass and snow scattered all over inside the cab. The truck is on its side, somehow, and…

The memories are as fragmented as the glass, but he thinks there was ice, and the truck slid.  _ Rick’s not gonna be happy. He hates when his vehicles get damaged.  _ Tripp would offer to take the truck to the Pick-A-Part and fix it free of charge, but he thinks it might be totaled. 

He’s not too sure  _ he _ isn’t. He has glass cuts everywhere, and there’s a burning pain in his shoulder that might be a shard that stabbed him, he’s not sure. But nothing hurts as bad as his leg. It’s pinned under the dashboard. He tugs at it, but that makes his head hurt, and he’s too weak and dizzy to do much. 

His phone...He reaches for the pocket, then realizes he called Meredith and then set the phone in the truck. It’s definitely not on the center console any longer. And with his luck, even if he could find it, it would be smashed and useless. 

He shivers, and then cringes when the movement makes the pain in his leg absolutely unbearable. He can’t tell if he screamed or not, the world is too blurry and he’s not really sure of anything. Except that he’s in a lot of trouble. 

The wind whips stinging snow through the broken window, and Tripp huddles in on himself, wishing he’d just stayed home.  _ It’s so cold. _

* * *

Meredith trusts Creech. But she still thinks they might die. The little monster is flinging the truck over mounds of snow, and has a complete disregard for any ice on the road. They’re sliding and slipping everywhere, and she’s given up pretending to drive, taken her hands off the wheel, and sat back, praying she doesn’t get sick.

And then Creech practically bellows, and they leap over an entire drift. Below them, Meredith can see that the road is all torn up, and there’s a massive hole in the guardrail. 

_ No, no, no, no, no. _ “Creech stop!!” She screams. He skids to a halt, snow and ice flying. The truck’s tires have no grip on the black ice that covers the road in a sheet, but Creech’s tentacles are no longer on the axles, they’re spread out over the road, dragging them to a stop. Meredith leaps out of the truck and yelps, sliding backward and slamming into the side of the car. Her back and shoulder ache. And then something catches her, practically lifting her off the ground. She shrieks again, but it’s just Creech. He’s carrying her over the ice, to the snowdrifts at the edge. The second he lets go of her, she starts to scramble down the slope to where Rick’s grey pickup is resting on its side, smashed into a mangled, ugly mess. Meredith feels sick at the sight. She doesn’t want to think of what Tripp’s going to look like. 

She slides to a stop, stumbling on the slick, snowy slope. The body of the truck stops her, and she rests her hands on it. Then leaps back as it wobbles, precariously perched on the edge of the slope. It’s swaying, and there’s a horrible screeching, rending sound as it starts to tilt toward the ravine.  _ It’s going to fall the whole way down. No, no, no! _

“Creech! Grab the truck! Hold it steady!!” If the truck rolls again, she has no idea what will happen. The ravine flooded with the last meltwater flood. If the pickup landed in the water and she couldn’t get Tripp out…

Creech wraps his tentacles around the undercarriage and anchors himself to the trees on the slope. He tugs the vehicle slightly, maneuvering it onto a more solid section of the slope. Meredith leans toward the smashed drivers’ window, scrambling onto the car. It wobbles terrifyingly, but she trusts Creech not to let her and Tripp crash to their deaths in the ravine. Tripp is lying inside, pale and still. She can’t tell if he’s alive or dead. His hair and face are streaked with blood. “Tripp!” She shouts, although all the yelling she’s been doing should have woken him up. He doesn’t move. She pulls off her glove, reaches through the window, and rests her fingers against Tripp’s blood-streaked neck, almost crying with relief when she feels a weak but consistent pulse.  _ He’s still alive. It’s okay. We can work with that. _

She pulls out her phone and calls Rick back. “Rick! I found Tripp! He’s alive, but he’s hurt. His truck slid off the road at the corner of West Montgomery Road and Black Creek Road.” Her fingers are going numb. She switches her phone to her other hand and pulls her glove back on.

“Oh thank God.” Rick whispers. “How’d you find him?”

“Creech found him. He’s keeping the truck from falling all the way down the ravine.”

“Ok. Just hold on.” Rick says. “Don’t try to be a hero, you could make things a lot worse. I’m glad you found him, but you need to be careful, okay? I don’t need to take two kids to the hospital at death’s door.”

“Yes.” Meredith nods, even though he can’t see her. She’s taken multiple first aid and wilderness survival courses for her camp counselor job. She knows that it doesn’t work like the movies.

“You stay warm, and try to keep him warm. Don’t move him. If he’s got a neck or spine injury, you’ll make it worse.” Rick’s voice is tinny and worried. “Just try to keep him warm. I’m calling an ambulance right now, and I’ll be there soon. It’s gonna be okay, Mer. Just stay calm.”

She takes a deep breath. She hasn’t panicked yet. She just has to hold it together until help comes. 

She nods to Creech. “Can you pull open the door?”

He twists one tentacle into the window, and she winces when she sees the glass leave bleeding scratches on his skin. He doesn’t seem to care. She realizes her own hands are cut up and her knee is scraped. Nothing hurts. It doesn’t matter. The mangled, dented door creaks and then opens with a scraping groan. 

Meredith scrambles up the hill, grabs every blanket from the truck, and shuffles back down. She reaches through the door, and begins to tuck one of the blankets around Tripp the best she can. He’s so cold. His hands are like ice. 

She thinks the soft moan is the metal creaking. But then it turns into a strangled cry of pain. “Tripp!” His gasp sends a cloud of white fog into the air. “Tripp, it’s going to be okay.”

“M-Mer-Meredith?” His voice cracks, and cuts off in a strangled whimper. “Wh-what are y-you d-doing here?”

“You made me late for classes,” She jokes, brushing hair out of his eyes. “I’ve gotta make you pay for breaking my perfect attendance record.”

“Y-you d-don’t have p-perfect att-tendance.” He chuckles weakly. “Y-you ski-skipped to g-go to the p-protest line wh-when Terravex f-first came t-to town.” 

“Okay, you got me.” She smiles. “Now stop talking, you need to stay warm.” She tucks another blanket around his shoulders. 

“W-would b-be w-warmer if y-you came in h-here.” He smiles at her, although it’s more of a pained grimace. 

“Yeah, well, I can’t exactly do that because your car is on its side. You have a bad habit of rolling your vehicles over, you know that, Tripp Coley?” She has to laugh or she’s going to cry.

“C-creech? C-can you...”

Meredith waves a hand at the little monster to make sure he doesn’t listen to that. “No, no, we shouldn’t move anything. Your back might be hurt.”

“D-don’t think s-so, j-just my leg.” He groans. “And I c-can feel it s-so I don’t th-think there’s an-nything wrong w-with my b-back.” 

Meredith shakes her head. “Trust me, we shouldn’t move you.” She leans down and grabs his hands in her own, tucking them both under the blankets. “But I’ll stay right here, I promise. Rick’s coming, and so’s an ambulance.”

He nods, and then shivers, gasping and biting back a scream. Probably because of his injured leg. Meredith feels her stomach clench and flip. It’s not  _ fair  _ that this happened, that her best friend is laying here in a world of pain because he was on his way to help her. She’d a hundred times rather have taken her own car and been the one who ran off the road.  _ But nothing can fix what’s already happened. _ She can’t afford to be angry or sad now. She has to keep Tripp calm, and keep him warm, until help comes. 

Creech gurgles softly, and when Meredith looks back at him he looks sad and worried. “It’s okay, he’s gonna be okay.” 

“H-hey b-buddy, th-thanks for c-coming t-to find m-me,” Tripp says, and Creech burbles. “N-next t-time I’m j-just gonna b-bring you.” There’s a satisfied bubbling noise that sounds almost like a laugh.  _ Trust Creech to get a perverse satisfaction that his replacement wasn’t any good.  _

She crouches there, feeling herself start to shiver as the wind gets colder and stronger. Tripp eventually  _ stops _ shivering, and that scares her enough that she crawls down, braces herself against the car as much as she can, and huddles in against him. “Just hold on. Help’s coming, I promise.” She’s tired, her eyes keep closing and the snow is freezing the lashes shut. 

There’s yelling from up above, and Creech begins to gurgle and roar.  _ Rick knows about him, but not too many other people do. The paramedics won’t. _ But if he lets go, the truck will fall. Creech must know that, because even when the screams start filtering down, he doesn’t move. 

And then there’s a hand on Meredith’s shoulder, and she blinks up into Rick’s face. “Meredith? Good Lord, you’re freezing.” He rests a hand on her cheek, then looks past her to where Tripp is slumped limp and pale and terrifyingly still. But she’s holding his hand, she can still feel his heartbeat.

“He’s still alive. He’s just really cold. He stopped shivering about...eight minutes ago.” She knows if they can get him warm he’ll be okay, hypothermia victims can sometimes even seem dead and be successfully revived.  _ Biology is a crazy subject sometimes. _ “He was responsive a while ago. I don’t think he has a bad concussion or anything. He was pretty coherent, he knew who I w-was.” She can’t stop the teeth-chattering shudder that runs through her.

“Okay, well, we’re gonna get you out of the way, up to the ambulance, okay?” Rick hands her off to a waiting paramedic who wraps her in a thermal blanket while staring nervously at Creech. She glances back at the car, just in time to hear Rick yell, “His leg’s pinned under the dashboard. Don’t see any blood but we’ve gotta be sure nothing’s going to start bleeding when we pull it off.” 

“Go get a spreader,” one of the paramedics yells. And then Creech reaches a free tentacle forward and grabs the metal. 

“No, just get someone in here ready to put on pressure!” Rick yells, and the woman turns back around, grabbing a handful of bandages from her bag. Creech carefully pulls the twisted metal and plastic away from Tripp’s leg, and the last thing Meredith sees before she’s being tugged over the edge of the ravine, onto the road, is Rick and the paramedics gently removing Tripp’s limp body from the truck.

When they slide the stretcher into the ambulance, Tripp looks half-dead. There’s a brace around his neck, there’s  _ so much _ blood on his face, and he’s so pale. His skin looks almost blue.

Meredith doesn’t let go of his hand the whole ride to the hospital.

* * *

Tripp wakes up to the rather surprising feeling of being warm. Well, sort of. There’s no snow blowing in on him, and no more icy wind. But he’s still shivering a little.

His hand is especially warm. He glances over to see that that’s because Meredith is holding onto it. 

She’s fallen asleep in a chair by the bed, her hair a mess, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders.  _ She came to find me. _ He doesn’t know what he did to deserve someone like her. But he’s not going to question it. 

He squeezes her hand, and she sits up, blinking, pushing her messy red hair out of her eyes. “Hey. Good to see you back,” she says softly. 

“What, were you worried about me?”

“No, but Creech was. Turns out, apparently hospitals won’t let oil-eating cave monsters inside. I tried to convince them he was a service animal, but I don’t think they believed it. When this is over I’m gonna sue them,” She chuckles. “They’re not supposed to deny service animals access.”

He grins. She’s always fighting to make the world a little bit better place. But she doesn’t have to do anything else to make  _ his  _ world better. Just the fact that she’s in it is enough. “He’s probably mad at me anyway. He was kinda mad I took the truck and not him.”

“He’s been throwing everything he can get his tentacles on at it in the junkyard,” Meredith chuckles. “Mr. Weathers stopped by to see how you’re doing, and he told me Creech is on a rampage against that truck. I guess he’s angry that you replaced him with it, and he thinks it was personally responsible for hurting you.” 

_ Of course. _ He starts to sit up, then winces at the sharp pain in his right leg. He pulls away the multiple blankets to see that there’s a thick cast on it. “Ouch.”

“You’re lucky. The bone’s cracked, not completely broken. But that doesn’t mean it’s not going to hurt.” Meredith shrugs. “You’re not going to be running around anytime soon.” She stands up. “But that does mean you can’t run away from me when I show up for tutoring.” She drops a handful of flashcards on his lap. “The school’s going to give you an extension on that exam. I guess it takes near-death experiences for them to decide some things aren’t all that important.”

“Can’t he just give me a pass?”

“Not unless the entire test is on the skeletal system and the effects of a cracked femur.” She sits down on the edge of the bed, pulling a couple of the blankets over her own lap and then tucking them around them both.  _ Okay, maybe this won’t be the worst study session in the world.  _ She picks up the cards and leans back against the pillows. The warmth of her resting against him chases away the last of the chill, and he smiles.  

Rick pokes his head in the door, with Mom right behind him. “Good to see you awake and alert again, kid.” Rick smiles, and there’s a whole lot of relief there.

“Sorry I crashed your truck,” Tripp mutters, looking down at the blankets and biting his lip.

“Listen, that was an accident. Coulda happened to me. Coulda happened to anyone. Don’t beat yourself up about it. You’re in rough enough shape as it is.” He chuckles. “You know, Weathers offered to loan you his wheelchair.”

“Very funny.” Tripp chuckles. 

“He also said that a bad leg will not excuse you from coming in to the junkyard. He says if he can run the place with no legs, you can certainly fix a few cars if you’ve still got one working one.”  _ Of course he did. _ Tripp’s never met anyone as comfortable with who he is as Mr. Weathers. The man repeatedly jokes about his legs, his wheelchair, and everything else that makes him different.  _ He’s the first person who made me feel like it was  _ okay _ to be different. _

“Tell him I’ll see him on Saturday.” 

“Ah, I think he’ll forgive a couple more days of recovery.” Mom holds out a thermos. “Looks like you two are keeping busy. Need a little brain fuel?” She opens the thermos and Tripp can smell hot chocolate.

“How’d you sneak that in here?” Meredith asks. “When I was in to get my appendix taken out they wouldn’t let Dad bring me anything.”

“What they don’t know won’t hurt them. And besides, it’s just a broken leg and moderate hypothermia,” Mom says, reading off the charts at the end of the bed and frowning. “And my hot chocolate is a guaranteed cure-all for anything cold-related.”  

She pours all four of them a mug. Tripp wraps his hands around his and takes a drink, the warmth flooding into him, just like the warmth of the family around him. Everything’s going to be just fine.


End file.
